NEW DELHI: They promise to be with you for you always. But expecting protection from a police force which sometimes has to work without a roof on its head is akin to asking for the moon.
Over one-third of police stations in the national capital are roofless wonders. Of the 182 police stations that function in Delhi, 72 have no permanent addresses and are run out of temporary shelters.
In a status report of the city’s police stations submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently, the Delhi Police admitted that infrastructural support for its personnel is in poor shape.
The massive dust storm and thunder squall of May 30 left 30 of these 72 police stations without a roof. The storm damaged portable cabins, leaving the cops at the mercy of nature. At many places, police station walls had collapsed, and the reconstruction of these are in progress.
Believe it or not, there are full-fledged police stations across the city functioning out of portable cabins, pitched tents and from two-room rented tenements. Shockingly, some of them are operating from “unauthorised” buildings rented by the Delhi Police. And the rent run into several lakhs.
Some of the buildings from which the police stations—with a Station House Officer (SHO) and nearly full strength of personnel—function do not even comply with building by-laws and the policemen, to suit their needs, have also allegedly made illegal changes inside those buildings.
Police stations at Shahbad Dairy, Karawal Nagar and Zafarabad are functioning from stinking dilapidated buildings, again rented to meet the growing needs of the Delhi Police. Moreover, one such police station, Kotla Mubarakpur, is running from porta cabins constructed in a small community park.
In some of these police stations, due to lack of space, complainants and other visitors are asked to sit outside the premises, primarily at tea stalls nearby, to await their turn to have a word with the police personnel manning the station.
On occasions, the investigating officer of a case would have to walk out of the police stations to meet with the complainants at the tea stalls to hear them.
With the police making it mandatory to have women personnel in every station, after the Nirbhaya case, the situation and privacy of policewomen and women complainants have become a major concern for the SHOs, also the administrative heads of the police stations. Two police stations have erected temporary tents to make mandatory women help desks, where women cops are forced to sit round the clock for handling crime against women.